


The Hound

by KestrelGirl



Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Amputation, Body Horror, Eye Gouging, Eye Trauma, Gen, Gore, Illustrations, Mind Control, Mordrem (Guild Wars), Sylvari (Guild Wars), Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:14:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22947628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KestrelGirl/pseuds/KestrelGirl
Summary: This is a rewrite of "Undoing," the first short story I wrote.Morwenna spent her life as a restless hitwoman without a purpose - until Mordremoth called, and she answered. The dragon could take her mind, but it couldn't bring out her true form. And when it can't shape a sylvari from afar, its champions must work its horrifying will in person...Note: In-game screenshots and screenshot edits within, including one depiction of severe eye trauma. There are new pics in this rewrite.
Kudos: 1





	The Hound

I’m finally here.

It’s been a long road into the jungle. A long road home. Our Master took me here. I obeyed its Call, but my body refused to give in and become better. Become superior. I’m taller now, and stronger. But my bark can’t bring itself to grow into the armor that will make me complete. **Be in my presence,** Mordremoth promises, **and be reborn.**

****

A woman walks in as I enter the blighting chamber. Twisted, fiendishly tall… **Isn’t she beautiful?** Diarmid, the blademaster. She and her fellow champions of the dragon are the epitome of all we are meant to be. Her features have been erased, no longer necessary, but for a single yellow eye and a rotted grimace. The other two aren’t here, but I have seen them - or perhaps, one of each, for all three were replicated in blighting pods like the one I now stand near. Hareth, the hulking axemaster, is bloated and covered in boils - yet he carries the strength of an army. Adryn, tangled in scarwood and blinded by the hands that pushed their way from the nape of his neck, grew a new eye as unblinking as Diarmid’s. His staff can ward off a legion.

Diarmid unsheathes - a sword? Two? **The tools of your transformation.** This will be agony. I don’t know what kind. But it is necessary. Mordremoth says so, and I will not argue.

A vinetender, Mordremoth’s own troll-like creation, raises a bench from the floor and motions me to lie down. Restraints curl around my arms and ankles as I obey. I can only **obey.**

“Let us begin.” Diarmid’s voice resonates within her twisted body. 

I try not to resist - **you** **_cannot_ ** **resist** , the dragon echoes - but I scream anyway, before she can even touch me. Diarmid bellows: “Oh, shut up.” 

Then it all begins and… I never thought I’d be… flayed alive. Everything bleeds… it all hurts… **You will not struggle. It is my will.** And then my bark is armor, thickening into a rotting coat that _fuses_ to me, numb and wrong. There are _teeth_ on it, pushing their way from the sap-stained edges. 

Two more cuts circle my flanks and swell into putrid vines that tighten like snakes, taking my breath away and forcing me to feel every gash. I tense up, try to think of something else through the pain - **You cannot run. You cannot hide.**

There. I am protected now. Is it over? No… no. There’s more. Whips, this time, lashing across my legs. The welts they leave toughen into woody plating. **This will make you stronger.** I don’t feel stronger. My vision is… fading… **No. You stay.**

Is it done? Gods. No. Diarmid grabs each shoulder and each wrist, and pierces it with one saber. Then the corruption takes hold, and growths of branches and lumps force their way through the wounds, taking over the bark around. I yell, again and again as the wounds erupt over and over. **You protest, but this is what is right.**

My forearms… they’re _bubbling_ , covered in pustules and sprouting with thick vines that push into my restraints. I realize I can’t feel my hands, but I can feel everything else as Diarmid gouges into the pustules, opening… eyes… _eyes?..._ where eyes should not be. Two, three, four? Now I can see everything around me. It doesn’t help. **You are becoming one with me.**

“Great,” groans Diarmid. “The cuffs choked off your hands. Time to solve that problem.”

Solve? And how does Diarmid expect a handless Mordrem Guard to fi- **Wait and see.**

The pain's… enough to make me convulse. Each arm tears through the vine binding it, sending a searing sensation even further than the shock of the blades against my hands. My throat burns, from screaming, and from the acid rising inside it. The stumps are - no, they're _not_ bleeding. What is -

That… wasn’t what I… _gods._ There are… new hands. Spindly, twitching, _wrong_ . I think I might… no, there’s nothing that can come out. Thanks to our master… I haven’t eaten in weeks. **The jungle provides. A rather amusing saying, but true.**

“Is there-” My voice is weak, and I feel like the sap’s been drained from me. It… really has.

“Yes, Morwenna. _There’s more._ You’re like a human child, asking if we’re there yet.”

A husk turns me face-down. What is Diarmid doing? I can’t see this. I only know when the swords plunge into each side of my spine - _by every divinity in Tyria it hurts -_ and something… slithers out of each growth socket. I’m buckling, thrashing… stretching. Growing again, too quickly. Then I am still, and I feel the _thing_ on my shin. Even as it forces my shoulders upward, it’s longer than the coat of my own flesh. A tail…? 

I can’t see it but… I can feel it… the corruption is _bending_ my sap into a crimson web, rising from innumerable wounds to meet whatever just wriggled out from inside me. Why? _Why?_ **As a stalker, you are my hunter, my hound. So shall you have a hound’s tail.**

****

“And now,” Diarmid jeers, “it’s time to muzzle this dog.”

She can make me into my true self all she wants, but adding insult to injury breaks the crushing silence in my mind. “What did you just -”

Then the husk grabs me, I’m on my back again, and Diarmid’s sword is over my face - what will she…

No, she’s backing away, and summoning something in her hand, and all I can do is beg for my life - no, I didn’t mean it, no, no, no, AAAGH - MMMMF- mmmm- _get it off me!-_

 **And rather than daring to defy me, -** Diarmid’s voice joins the dragon’s, and it’s too much to bear - **a true stalker must be silent.**

****

\---

There’s something on my face. I don’t know what it is. I can’t get it off.

_Why?_

Why do this, when the torment is over?

Maybe it’s only to make it last longer.

Whatever this is, it’s… _burrowing_ into me by the hour. I feel it eroding me away. I just want to breathe. To talk. To live. Why can’t that be? **Silence, hound.**

Can’t… wail for help. But… have to try. It has… my tongue. Been three days. It’s at my throat, tunneling, squeezing. Something ripping inside. It grips tighter… voice breaking… now all that comes out is air. No one here to free me...

I’ll just… stay here. Wait to die. I didn’t want this. I wanted power. Not pain. **You will have both.**

The… _thing_ is a jaw now. Can breathe, sort of. It doesn’t move. Doesn’t open for weeks. I try looking into a pool of rainwater when it finally does. Half my skull… gone. Not making that mistake again. Will it let me talk someday? I don’t want to know. **You will bark again when you are ready.**

\---

Been too long. I’m finally ready to hunt. **Kill one puny Pact officer,** Mordremoth orders, **and I will reward you.** I’m still aching. Scars are still fresh. Weight on my mind… too strong.

My breath whistles through the mask. I’m about to strike from stealth -

Stealth that fizzles. Something is wrong. That’s - an alarm. “Mordrem! Be on alert!”

We panic and scatter. We lose too many. I have to leap into the trees to escape. My scarred legs well with sap from the effort. 

**Fail, and your punishment will be whatever the Blademaster wishes.**

Back in the blighting chamber. Can’t make a sound anymore. Need to resist. Somehow. **You can’t do that.** Diarmid towers over me once again. What can she do to me now, after making my entire body her plaything? **There will always be more.**

The swords are - above my eyes? - _no, she can’t -_

_No, no, NO -_

They sink into the sockets, 

and she laughs - 

as my world goes dark.

**You are a disappointment. But I still have use for you yet.**

****

\--

I’m… alive. I’m still in the cha- I can see - no… my eyes are _gone._ Only air there now. Sick air. How can I…

Oh… my wrists see.

Something in my mouth. Something in my throat. Moves. Is it - 

_Hello…?_

No. Not mine. Raspy, scary. Made of vines. No eyes but… I can still cry…? **That would make you weak.** ****

All I have… Can’t lose… Can’t fail…

**There is no time for fear. You will not fail, or you will suffer even more. Yet no matter the price you pay, I will see through you. Speak through you.**

**Forever.**

****


End file.
